


I am, I am, I am.

by mr-finch (soubriquet)



Category: Person of Interest (TV)
Genre: Gen, Guilt, M/M, Philosophy, Soul-Searching
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-13
Updated: 2013-01-13
Packaged: 2017-11-25 08:49:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,977
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/637146
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/soubriquet/pseuds/mr-finch
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Reese is not a machine, cannot survive solely on the rhythms of a keyboard stamped into his soul; he's no golem, kept alive solely for Finch's purposes.</p><p>He fights because he wants to.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I am, I am, I am.

**Author's Note:**

> a pinch-hitting gift exchange fic for [ms-three](http://ms-three.tumblr.com)

The trouble with children is, you never know how they’re going to turn out. They may grow up to be artists, enamoured with their craft but disparaging of their peers. They might experience something you don't know about, can't protect them from, and become an adult who wants to make a change for the better in the world.

It might be that neither of these things happen, but that as parents do, you still feel like you failed somehow. Like there's a sickness in adulthood that people do best to keep from children and you let yours out too early. 

What if your child never had a heart?

A child who believes he lacks a heart is one who grows up sad. Sad and full of blame, like through the knowledge of his own burden he places on the world, he can save it all.

John Reese was one such child.

His earlier life is not full of memories so much as a pervasive feeling of guilt. It seeps into all he can recall, from clipped words with his father to the age he started closing doors on his mother. 

He does not conquer this feeling by growing up, by joining the military, or by meeting Jessica. It remains constant, like a lifelong friend, following in his footsteps to ensure that he never forget it entirely, even if love (for his country or elsewhere) can override its importance for a time.

In the end, he always goes back to guilt, and that is where Finch finds him.

-

It's a ridiculously long beard, and a haircut to match, but the Machine can still pick him out. If Finch was fond of metaphor, he might say that it has an eye for what hides beneath the outer layer, that it takes its job just as seriously as he takes his and saves its people in more than one way.

Then he remembers that it's just a machine. An algorithm, built on ten to the power of algorithms, uncountable locks and unlock sequences, and after all, he's not one to wonder what code lies within a human being. Intelligence, or what can be seen as intelligence, are mere logical leaps made by a function with the scope wide enough to see it.

Reese. Reese, on the other hand, is human.

He doesn't give him a heart, doesn't see the need for it until later, but even if Finch could perform the transplant, he wouldn't. Reese is not a machine, cannot survive solely on the rhythms of a keyboard stamped into his soul; he's no golem, kept alive solely for Finch's purposes.

He fights because he wants to.

That's the trait that the Machine picked up on, the one that makes him stand out above all other rogue operatives. Reese won't fight for money, for superiority or country. Only if you reach into his chest -- deep, it's dark down there -- will you find some spark maybe even he hasn't discovered yet. 

And perhaps this is a heart. Perhaps what humanity calls emotion, depth of feeling, and love, all stem from short sparks in synapses and not any red organ at all. Finch knows that it is the brain that controls our emotions, much as literature may romanticize the muscle that most delicately holds our mortality. 

It still ached in his chest for years when Nathan died. It still fluttered and jolted in Root's hand. He won't deny it that importance, nor try to hide from its clamours to be heard.

He won't operate on Reese. For starters, he wouldn't know where to look.

-

So, in their own way, the two of them grow, and save people, and lose face. Then they regain some of what they lost in each other, and Finch doesn't think of hearts much more, because they're both very private people and Reese doesn't talk about what's missing; what he lost; what he's still losing.

It's better that way. It would be difficult to explain why, after all of this, Finch won't fill that gap.

In a way, it's because he still can't. When Reese first walked in the dark he learned how to hide all that meant the most to him, and Finch can still see him doing it now. It makes finding where he keeps his heart all the harder, even if he leaves clues with every number, and the path that he's tracked is so cold, so full of guilt, like slow rusted metal eating through the walls.

"Why do you do it?" Finch asks one day, in the library, as Reese circles a name on the board of a person they're supposed to be following.

"Do what, Finch?" 

"Save the numbers," Finch says, and the look of mild incredulity he receives for that is worth it, if there's an answer.

It's only brief. Reese closes off again, turning away. "I thought you knew everything about me."

"Only the basics," Finch says, tempo measured and still, "Not the reasons behind why, or who, or what. The Machine sees what it sees, Mr. Reese, but only we can know which person is truly right or wrong."

Reese chuckles, deep and quiet in his throat, with that everlasting innocuousness to his tone. "So you lied. Tell me," he glances back towards him. "What do you know?"

"I know enough to say that you'll have a good answer, but it won't necessarily be the truth," Finch says, "I know that you're still not sure whether _you're_ right or wrong."

To that, Reese goes stoney-silent, the way he always does when he can't twist the question back on itself or come up with a laughably simple answer. It's how Finch knows where the boundaries are, when to push, push, push, and when to stay.

"So who decides my fate?"

"You tell me, Mr. Reese. Your reasons dictate your morality." Finch eyes him, that lurking shadow against the windowpane. "I'm like the Machine. Without your input, my analysis is useless. So if you want to know..." He rests his hands down, delicately, on the keys. "Why do you save the numbers?"

It takes Reese a moment, unmoving and staring into the space behind his eyes, but then he seems to see again, and one hand lifts to press itself against the name of their new victim. _Alison Mayhew,_ 24 years old, attends an orchestral group on the weekends. Her father died last month and they don't know why, but ever since then she has stopped going. She had a promising future in music, and now she's given it all up to take care of her younger brother; a junkie, and not about to kick the habit.

It doesn't make much sense, caring, or at least it shouldn't on an intellectual level. Particularly not when it can override promise and potential, and in this case, be a threat to that person's life. If the heart was solely responsible for the emotions we feel, and therefore caring, Finch would know what to access, and perhaps the world would too. Perhaps, without the need for hearts and emotions, the world would fix itself.

But people like Reese wouldn't exist, then. People who fight not for reason's sake, or for the advance of potential, but because in their bones they truly feel it: they would no longer be a part of it at all.

What kind of world would that be?

"I lost someone," Reese says, and Finch looks up. "A long time ago. So did you." 

He won't stop looking at Finch; his eyes are sincere and his face pulled taught over pain. "That's why I won't stop saving the numbers. Because someone needed to be there for _me,_ and no one was."

Finch doesn't have an immediate reply. At least, not one that can be quantified. 

"Do you miss her?" he asks, quietly, ever so quietly.

"Every day," Reese says, and then, almost as an afterthought. "What about you?"

It's unexpected; so much so that Finch's voice stumbles over the words as they try to trip back inside. He takes a moment to clear his throat -- cheats, like he always does. "I've found that missing someone is like a virus - the only way it's possible to fight it is day by day."

"Like a computer?" Reese says, and smiles benignly, all the worse for its glimmer of hope and humor in the midst of great sorrow. 

It stops Finch for a beat, as he's caught not by his intention to immediately correct the meaning, but because there's something there that he can't quite fix on. Something - some phrase, or quote, or lesson, that just answered him.

"Harold," Reese says, from the corner of his vision. "If you keep thinking of yourself as a machine, you won't ever understand us humans."

-

It's only a teasing phrase, echoing like the wind through a worn keyhole. It shouldn't stick around for weeks after, losing its structure but remaining as an impression, a half-forgotten thought that solved a puzzle Finch can't even remember.

He goes over what he knows about Reese, what he thinks about their reasoning and their task. Everything he can.

He turns up nothing.

When the FBI close in and Reese is captured, he has time -- flight-time -- again, to think in rapid motion. While Finch is spreading digital fingers and sending his soldiers out to find their way in, while he listens at half attention to the conversation Reese has with Detective Carter, he has the processing power to pull through old memories to see if their stories would be useful.

There's one that only makes sense when he closes down the computer, when all that's left is to rifle through dusty boxes and pull on a uniform and load a gun. It's something about the difference between humans and computers, where the water stinging his eyes is part of something more important than damaging to his system.

Maybe it's both. In a question of whether running into Rikers waving a grenade launcher would be dangerous, he'd probably have to say yes. Whether the risk would be worth it, though, depends on only one last factor:

Would he prefer to live in a world with potential that was never enacted?

Or would he prefer to keep his secret like a warm bed, and fall into the unknown, all in the pursuit of something he was losing?

What he supposes he's really asking is whether sacrifice is worth it.

Alison Mayhew is 25 when her brother gets clean, and at 26 she becomes the youngest cello player to play in the New York Philharmonic Orchestra. In an interview, she thanks her mother for always supporting her, her brother for his solidarity, and a man who convinced her that even in times of great need, a good reason to fall is much braver than taking the leap.

Finch is almost disappointed when Carter phones him back to tell him that they made it, that Reese is out of Rikers and heading back home.

He wants to tell her _I know where the heart is,_ but neither of them will understand, and he's not sure he trusts himself well enough to explain it just yet. He knows now that it's not as easy as pointing to a diagram, or searching for answers, that even here, they can't escape their losses and pain.

If missing someone is like a virus, then it isn't the technical kind. It's the one that steals in, on a whim, and knocks you down for days. There's no inoculation, just suggested preventative methods: ones that he himself has been using for much too long.

Perhaps this, then, is adulthood's sickness; the spark or chemicals everyone tries to forget, or stall, determine or analyze. Perhaps he couldn't find it before, because it's something that only makes itself known when it's about to combust.


End file.
